1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a housing for mounting an adjustable height work surface to a wall panel. In one of its aspects, the invention relates to an adaptor housing incorporating a height adjustable mechanism and which mounts a variety of different mounting brackets for mounting an adjustable height work surface to a wall.
2. Description of the Related Art
A typical open office furniture system comprises a series of wall panels connected together at the edges thereof. The wall panels normally have at each edge slotted vertical standards which provide vertical hanging intelligence for mounting work surfaces, shelves and other similar accessories to the wall panels with mounting brackets. The mounting brackets typically have several hooks which when inserted into the slots of the vertical standards are supported by the vertical standards as the brackets are moved downwardly.
Unfortunately, most OEM office panels use a different type of mounting bracket and vertical standard. Usually, the number and shape of the hooks of the mounting bracket vary with the different manufacturer. The spacing and size of the slots associated with the vertical standards will also vary with the manufacturer. Therefore, it is difficult to manufacture accessories which will mount to all the office wall panels made by the different manufacturers. Thus, a special model for each manufacturer must be made. Thus, the cost of making accessories is higher and the flexibility of the office panel systems is reduced. Therefore, it has long been desired to provide a mounting means which can mount the same accessory to a wall panel regardless of the manufacturer.
There are many ways for mounting accessories to the wall panels of a typical office partition system, especially vertically adjustable work surfaces. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,881,471, to Schwartz et al., issued on Nov. 21, 1989, discloses a retrofitable vertically adjustable work surface which is mounted to an office wall panel through two telescoping pairs of vertical rails. Hooks extend from a second pair of vertical rails which mount in the slots of vertical standards in the wall panels. U.S. Pat. No. 4,619,208, to Kurrasch, issued on Oct. 28, 1986, discloses a work surface which is mounted to a wall panel for vertical adjustment by a mounting bracket having two opposed sets of hooks. One set of hooks engages the slots in the work surface and the other set engages the slots of the vertical standard. U.S. patent to Engel et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,039,727, issued Jun. 19, 1962 discloses a bracket for mounting a shelf to a vertical post having a T-shaped slot. The bracket is slidably movable within the T-shaped slot and is fixed at the desired position by a nut. The shelf engages the upper portion of the bracket.
Heretofore, each solution has required a mounting bracket which is especially constructed to meet the dimensions of each OEM. There has been no universal means for mounting an accessory such as a vertically adjustable work surface, to the slotted vertical standards of a variety of the different office panel systems made by different OEMs.